Yes, a well stocked First Aid Kit is very important, and my gardening friends, I'd like to suggest adding one more unusual, and completely unexpected, item to your First Aid arsenal!

So, I'm going out on a limb here, and I'll speak for most of us that we couldn't consider ourselves true gardeners, if we didn't have a blister or two rear their ugly, and quite painful, little (or not so little) 'bubbles', each and every gardening season!

Speaking from personal experience, I am quite 'challenged', as it were, when it comes to using power string trimmers! I must be the only quite capable individual, within a several-hundred mile radius, to find that particular piece of yard equipment to be awkward and back-breaking to use! And, quite honestly, I must humbly admit that I'm downright uncoordinated with the thing! Therefore, I'm stuck with using a manual hand clippers to trim the edging around the various gardens, on our small property! As a result, I'm cursed with blisters, on my dominant hand, like clockwork every year, and this season (2017) was no exception! As a matter of fact, I had the largest blister on the palm of my hand EVER, this year, and I didn't notice the thing until it opened up on it's own! Oweee! ...and that's an understatement! Now, I must add a little back-story, because it had a bit of extra help in developing to the point of opening up! So, at the risk of getting in to another subject, within this subject, I had been wearing a compression wrap because I had dropped a 40lb concrete patio block on my dominant hand, several days prior! No broken bones, but I suffered contusions to the ligaments on the top of my hand. I followed the doctor's orders, like a good girl, and it was iced for three days, and given a full rest, before heading back into the gardens! So, that compression bandage was rubbing the palm of my hand with each cut! I was so upset because it had opened up just when I had about 18 inches of clipping left to do! So I 'took one for the team' (Of course, the 'team' consisting of me, myself, and I ), and powered through to finish up! (Quite honestly, I'm too OCD to have left that little bit of grass untrimmed! ....my own worst enemy at times! )

Now, being that I had a very painful palm on my dominant hand, and opened blisters are really too tender for a bandage of any sort, I searched all over the house to find the perfect item that was large enough and soft enough to apply ointment and leave on the area to protect that blister, with a minimal amount of pain, as I possibly could find. Well, after searching my makeup accessory stash, I found the perfect item! (Now, gentlemen, please humor me for a spell! ) I found a package of brand new (and sanitary) replacement powder puffs! Not the huge fluffy kind! They typically come in a package of two, and they are approximately 1.5 to 2 inches in diameter. Being that my blister was very long a simple band aid would not have covered it at all, and a sterile pad (which I fortunately had not one!) would have been in order! Ouch, just not soft enough either!! So these powder puffs are perfect, friends! They are so very soft, and about .25 of an inch thick, so continued use of the hand was possible because the pad absorbed the rubbing and shifting that the skin, that's no longer there, would normally have endured, without rubbing the open blister area, too much! I simply cut off the ribbon, applied vitamin D ointment to the pad, and secured it to the palm of my hand by wrapping, and completely covering, it in kinetic tape, since it's very elastic and lasts for several days before even beginning to peel! My plan was to go back out the next day to move on to the next area to clip, but it didn't happen due to other unexpected obligations, so it was not tested to that extent, but I have to say, this solution was the most comfortable option to nurse an open blister that I've EVER used!!

So, my friends, be sure and pick up a package or two of replacement powder puffs to keep at the ready in your first aid kit, and you will be very relieved to have them to utilize on your blisters!! Gentlemen, if you're not the type to mosey around the make up aisle of the drug store , you could ask a special lady, in your life, to help you stock your first aid kit with powder puffs, and nobody will be the wiser!!

I hope this little tidbit of information is helpful, friends!!

Happy Gardening!!
Dana

Caveat: My experience was only with an open blister. I cannot speak for how this application would work for an unopened blister, so try it, if you wish, and update us on your experience, whether good or bad!